New York, Part 3: Coney Island, land of the poison knish

Probably the weirdest thing I ate in New York was the bite off Kathy’s knish at Coney Island. Actually, calling it “weird” discredits the good name of this blog. This knish was just plain nasty. It tasted like it had been freezer burned, thawed, dropped on the floor, put back in the freezer, fried in rancid oil and given to her by a nose-picking carny.

True confession: there’s a subset of food that actually grosses me out. It’s vague, but it’s anything served in a restaurant that is thawed and marinated in a haze of cigarette smoke. It is the cuisine of preservatives and packaging, bland yet sulfurous. Food that conjures visions of trailer parks, dirty stretch pants and the scent of bubbling Velveeta and burning Steak-umms. It’s trashy in an unselfconscious way. Think IHOP, hospital food, and for anyone who’s ever been there, Bernard’s on Seneca (rubbery sauerkraut and wiener schnitzel a quarter-inch thick and dry as sandpaper). Think T-Rations. Gray-tinted turkey slices in hotel pans. A buffet at a dive bar bathed in dusty sunbeams

Welcome to a famous place that’s supposed to be awesome

My one bite of knish put me off a Coney Island dog. But I don’t regret it. Coney Island, possibly the seediest place on Earth, is no place to eat. It’s like everything has broken the three-second rule by twenty minutes. The place made me queasy.

When we entered the station after an hour on the subway, I saw something that would set the tone for the rest of our visit. Someone had painted a mural of some kind of green swamp creature. It looked like the work of a kid whose medium is ballpoint pen applied to a pant leg during math class. It typified the Coney Island aesthetic. Crappy and amateurish, DIY gone special ed. I couldn’t tell where the graffiti ended and the legitimate signage began. Instead of fading images of past glory, Coney flaunted the sad mediocrity of the present.

One hand is green, one hand is orange. Who needs continuity?

Kathy, my friend and host, had never been to Coney Island. To use a Tom Waits-ism, I wanted to see its legendary “crumbling beauty.” That day’s dreary weather dramatized the amusement park’s reputation. It was blustery and drizzling, like a Bergman landscape.

Kathy, making the best of it

When we arrived, we found out it was off-season. The rides were all chained up. But riding a Ferris wheel in the rain wouldn’t have been much fun, anyway. The boardwalk shops still offered their dubious treats: funnel cakes, fried clams, gyros and mozzarepas.

Is it “Taco Corner” or “Gyro Corner”?

Also shut: the (famous?) “Shoot the Freak” attraction, a pit strewn with garbage (including stolen concrete highway dividers) where some guy whose parents didn’t read to him dodges paintballs fired by jealous sadists who probably applied for the job themselves.

The Gaza Strip of Brooklyn

I would classify Kathy as a dedicated eater of whole, healthy foods. That’s why I was surprised when she broke down and purchased a knish at Ruby’s Bar & Grill, a few doors down from the establishment offering free Daiquiri refills. Not only was out of character, the risk carried little potential for reward.

Ruby’s: Mafia hideout and home of the poison knish

We finished up at the snack bar and went inside the adjoining bar where party revelers were starting to arrive. A beer-logo banner over the entrance read, “Good luck Willie and John on your retirement.” In the back, someone had set out a party sub and some roast beef slices in one of those disposable roasting pans, steaming away on a can of Sterno. My food nightmare had reared its ugly head.

Most of the party-goers were sitting at the bar across the room. It was like “The Sopranos” gone wrong. I don’t know what company they worked for, but I’m sure the Teamsters were involved. There was no snarky, ironic kitsch going on here. They weren’t slumming.

There was a silver-haired guy in a leather jacket, reminiscent of Paulie Walnuts, eating alone at a table next to an old motorcycle serving as a decoration. Mr. Balding-Ponytail-and-Sunglasses-Guy made the rounds at the bar. A pinched woman with blond highlights wearing black gave me the impression she had a knife accessible by zipper in her pants leg. There was a menacing version of Wilford Brimley who looked like he had broken a few strikes and a couple guys in muscle shirts. A bartender with a headband brought them drinks. The soundtrack was, of course, Oldies.

“>Upper left corner of the photo, where it says, “hole family”: Does that have anything to do with “The Aristocrats“?

I’m amazed Kathy ate as much of that knish as she did. One bite, and I had killed about a week’s worth of appetites. It didn’t take her long to feel the same way. Even the soda seemed stale.

Since we had hobbled our spirits, we figured we might as well go all the way and buy some scratch tickets on the way out. A vendor who made floats had provided generous counter space for the fools whose expertise in games of chance didn’t go beyond dragging a quarter over colorful promises of easy cash.

We played a few rounds and pretty much zeroed out. I picked up a t-shirt with the creepy clown logo that looks like a sixties version of the Joker from the Batman comics. It’s pretty cool, but I still get a little nauseous when I take it off the hanger.